Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?

The relation between creation and evolution is sometimes thought to be controversial. However, many evangelical Christian leaders in Darwin’s day were generally remarkably quick to baptize evolution into the traditional Christian doctrine of creation. Today our contemporary understanding of evolutionary theory has made that process even easier and this lecture will explore the reasons why the answer is “no” to the question posed by its title.

Dr Denis Alexander is the Founding Director [Emeritus] of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge, where he is Emeritus Fellow of St. Edmund’s College.? Dr. Alexander was previously at the Imperial Cancer Research Laboratories in London (now Cancer Research UK) and spent 15 years developing university departments and laboratories overseas, latterly as Associate Professor of Biochemistry in the Medical Faculty of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where he helped to establish the National Unit of Human Genetics. From 1992-2013 he was editor of the journal Science and Christian Belief, and Dr. Alexander also served as a member of the executive committee of the International Society for Science and Religion. Having given the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews University in 2012, these lectures were published by CUP in August 2017 under the title “Genes, Determinism and God.” Dr. Alexander’s latest book is Is There Purpose in Biology? [Oxford: Lion, 2018] and his book Are We Slaves to Our Genes is due out with CUP later in 2020.

The McIntyre Lecture series exists to promote understanding of the purposes and limits of science by examining historical and philosophical influences.